A 19-year-old made a free robot lawyer that has appealed $3 million in parking tickets

Hiring a lawyer for a parking ticket appeal is not only a
headache — it can also cost more than the ticket
itself.

Depending on the case and the lawyer, an appeal (a legal
process where you argue out of paying the fine) can cost
between $400 to $900.

But with the help of a bot made by British programmer Joshua
Browder, 19, it costs nothing.

Browder's bot handles questions about parking ticket appeals
in the UK. Since launching in late 2015, it has
successfully appealed
$3 million worth of tickets. Joshua Browder's robot can help answer questions about
parking tickets.Joshua
Browder

Once you sign in, a chat screen pops up. To learn about your
case, the bot asks questions like, "Were you the one driving?"
and "Was it hard to understand the parking signs?" It
then spits out an appeal letter, which you mail to the
court. If the robot is completely confused, it tells
you how to contact Browder directly.

The site is still in beta, and the full version will launch this
spring, Browder, a Stanford University freshman, tells Tech
Insider.

Since laws are publicly available, bots can automate some of the
simple tasks that human lawyers have had to do for
centuries. Browder's isn't even the first lawyer bot.
The startup Acadmx's bot creates perfectly
formatted legal briefs. The company Lex Machina does data mining
on judges' records and makes predictions on what they will do in
the future.

Beyond parking tickets, Browder's bot can also help with
delayed or cancel led flights and payment-protection insurance
(PPI) claims. Although the bot can only help file claims on
simple legal issues — it can't physically argue a case in front
of a judge — it can save users a lot of money.

Browder programmed his robot based on a conversation
algorithm. It uses keywords, pronouns, and word order to
understand the user's issue. He says that the more people
use the robot, the more intelligent it becomes. Its
algorithm can quickly analyze large amounts
of data while improving itself in the process.

Although Browder programmed the bot according to UK
law, he says it can be helpful in the US too. For example, if a
flight is delayed from New York City to London, the ticket
holder can use the robot to claim
compensation. Browder is working to program US
city laws into the bot, starting with NYC.

In the future, people won't likely need to hire lawyers for
simple legal appeals. They'll just use a bot.

While Browder doesn't think robots will be debating in the
Supreme Court any time soon, he believes as artificial
intelligence technology progresses, fewer lawyers will do
mundane tasks.

"As a 19-year-old, I have coded the entirety of the robot
on my own, and I think it does a reasonable job of replacing
parking lawyers," he says. "I know there are thousands of
programmers with decades more experience than me working on
similar issues."U.S.
Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Bryer.Kevin
Lamarque

But are bots like these the same as hiring a lawyer?

It depends on whether they cross the ethical line of
giving subjective advice, says Bradley
Moss, a DC attorney who specializes in national
security. If the bot were to answer subjective questions, that
would be viewed as practicing law, which only humans can legally
do.

"There are ethical and legal limits to what they can
do. Programs such as this one do not, at least in my
humble opinion, threaten the legal profession writ large,"
Moss says. "They will, however, continue to
streamline processes for handling simple tasks that arguably
people should be able to handle without the need for — and
expense of — formal legal
assistance."Legally
Blonde's beloved, yet fictitious lawyer Elle
Woods.MGM
Studios

Most of these bots are tools that can rapidly crawl public
records and serve up legal information.
Bots can't provide full and genuine legal counsel,
and it will likely take them several decades to become as
sophisticated as a human, says Samuel Woolley, who tracks and studies political
bots.

He's programming the bot to handle more
complicated legal issues too, including asylum for Syrian
refugees. The language barrier is a coding challenge, since
the robot needs to understand Arabic but produce a legal
document in English. This bot will likely
launch by summer — at no cost.

"If it is one day possible for any citizen to get the same
standard of legal representation as a
billionaire,"Browder says, "how can that not be a
good thing?"